Anyone have a kid they call "twice exceptional"?

I have an 8 year old who her 3rd grade teacher thinks may be twice exceptional. I had never even heard such a thing existed until a couple weeks ago, but now I'm interested in finding out if anyone has experience in this area.

I have always thought she was exceptional intelligence wise, which her teacher agrees with, but she also thinks my daughter may have a LD to go with it - ie: twice exceptional.

My daughter could point out all her letters by sight at 18 months old, before she could even talk. Could sight recognize all her letters caps & small, numbers to 100, every shape & color you could imagine, used words like melancholy & apparently in her regular speech... all at age 2. She would memorize pretty long books after only having me read them a couple times. She loved working puzzles, but after a couple times she would get bored, then turn the pieces upside down to the brown side and work them. She has always been exceptional, but always only done just OK in school.

In Kindergarten she would have trouble finishing assignments on time, even when it was things she had known how to do for years. I always just thought she was bored. She never did really learn to read until we just started letting her memorize every sight-word we could think of. She reads well now and has a tremendous vocabulary, but does creative writing at a very remedial level for a 3rd grader. She had tremendous trouble doing simple math fact sheets in 2nd grade and was behind everyone in her class. But, give her a very difficult and complex word problem and she was the only child who could do them. Yet on a coloring sheet with simple addition, she be the kid who hasn't even started when everyone else is already done.

There are many examples of this discrepancy, but I don't really know whats going on. I always thought she was just being lazy, but maybe its not that. Any advice would be great... I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed.
[Modified by: JennyC on September 08, 2008 06:06 PM]

I think your talking about using "ROTE" memory. Alot of medical students need to use rote memory to get through school. Alot of medical students can't write papers well and many probably have poor fine motor coordination and can't be a surgeon. It's good to know what skills your child has.

Around age 7 or 8, your child will need to use "Analytical" skills and inference and problem solving skills. This is different than rote memory since the verbatum testing will be different. More reasoning and looking deeper into a problem to come up with a solution.

This might be the area of where LD comes into play since reading and math need the use of analytical skills.

I like the book "keeping a head in school" by Dr. Mel Levine. It gives you all information about the brain, memory and language functions needed to keep up in school. I also like his other books "A mind at at time" and "The myth of Laziness"

We are all wired differently. The school is set up and expects every child to learn the same way at the same time all the time. Some kids are meant to be diversified and well rounded and some kids just need 1 specialty in life. There is a job and an opportunity for success for everyone out there.

Annette

You can find more information and support for 2E kids here http://community.greatschools.net/groups/16042

Learning Disabilities (LD) and ADHD, Education Support, The*SAFE*Site http://millermom.proboards107.com